A large proportion of my membership prefers to use email vs. web forums. This is due, not only to preference, but also because some key users work in secure facilities that don’t allow open access to the web. Most of the email functionality I have seen in Discourse is fine for my needs, but the ability to start a thread using email vs. only on the site is very important.

If you have already set up reply via email, or you are on a hosting plan that pre-configures your incoming email, you’re now ready to set up Starting a New Topic via Email.
Site Settings
The incoming emails feature is globally controlled by these 3 site settings:
email_in: this is the only setting that must be enabled for incoming emails to work.
email_in_min_trust: the minimum trust level required for users to send an email to Discourse.
enable_staged_users: create staged users for unknow…

Discourse is all about enabling civilized discussion. While plenty of people like a web interface, e-mail is still the “hub” of many people’s online lives. That’s why sending e-mail is so important, and when you’re sending e-mail, you really want to be able to receive it, too. There are several reasons why:
If e-mails “bounce” (they can’t be delivered for some reason), you need to know about that. Repeatedly sending e-mails that bounce will get your e-mails flagged as spam. Receiving e-ma…

If your Discourse does not have incoming email set up, here’s how:
:bell: if you already have basic reply via email set up (which is common on hosting plans), and you want to add the ability to start a new topic via email, see this topic.
You have two options for enabling incoming emails to your Discourse: polling via POP3 or pushing to the API
1. Polling emails via POP3
If you want to poll emails using POP3 you must first setup email polling. For that, I recommend that you follow the tutor…

But, I now see a subsequent posting (dated July 2016) where it seems Discourse has made the first instruction moot/not necessary.

After a few weeks of testing, we are now introducing reply-by-email to all our hosted customers. Every email notification your users receive from now on will include the notice “reply to this email to respond” in the footer.
[image]
Replying by email is great for people who are on the move or just happen to prefer email for whatever reason – accessibility, habit, or offline access. (…)
This topic is for comments on the original blog entry at: Reply-by-email enabled for all Discourse customer…

My question: Do I still need an email address - outside of Discourse - in order to initialt email postings AND replies fully functional?

Apologies in advance; I know CMS systems, but email set up is not something I have any experience with.

My own university is one thing, but my general membership base is another. I have a lot of international academic researchers on my list, and others at specialized institutions, who do not have control over how their organization configures email. New subscribers may be able to be “trained,” however if, after a data migration, I encounter existing users with the same issue, what to do? And with the person I wrote about, she is helping me test Discourse right now. Is there no workaround on the Discourse side? Or is it all about wrestling with the IT department each time?